Why Did The Persian Empire Use The Royal Road?

The Persian Empire reigned for about 200 years, starting around the 6th century BCE. The Empire began with Cyrus the Great’s expansion of his kingdom by conquering other countries. During the time 200 years of this large Empire’s existence, they invented several important things that we still use today. One of those few things being the first large thoroughfare or road. These roads were prominent in the sense that everything related to the empire was connected to this road. It was the ancient equivalent to what we refer to as an interstate today. This thoroughfare was referred to as “the Royal Road.” What if the royal road had never existed? Interstates and major roadways would simply not exist and our country would be smaller because communication

With this fact being stated, the Royal Road’s original use was for the King of the time, Darius the third king of the Persian Empire, but eventually the rest of the Empire caught on to how easily it was to use the road for communication and trade. If you think of it like how semi-trucks transport goods across the country on the interstate and UPS trucks delivers mail on major roadways, the Royal Road was that time period’s version of Tennessee’s I-75 or I-24 or East Ridge’s Ringgold Road. After its invention, the Royal Road had shown to be the fastest method of communication. The Royal Road was known by the statement that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" based off the praise of a Greek historian named Herodotus. Later on, words similar to that, “Through rain or shine…” became the creed of the United State Postal

Specifically, American culture because the United States is so large and relies on the interstate system to transport mail, goods, and other necessities. The distance between India to Egypt was almost the same as the distance from California to Maine. Societies could simply not survive without a major roadway to supply a country’s needs. If the interstate is similar to Persia’s roadway then if the Royal Road had never existed, the United States’ inner structure would have never been thought of. There has been a lot of legislation throughout the last century that have “Further legislation over the years continued to expand the total length of the system, which now stretches for more than 74,600 km (46,380 miles)” As of 1959, the United States had progressed to 50 states, which happened around the same time that “President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956” that “created a 41,000-mile National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” (“The U.S. Interstate Highway System”). After several Highway Acts later, the interstate system had expanded to the length and width it is at now. With that, companies such as FedEx, UPS, Box 1, and other major trucking companies have been able to thrive because of their fast means of shipping, creating a big business for transportation. Without an interstate system, our economy would collapse because of lack of trade. No means of communication would have been created